Archive for June 2007

Heinrich Böll was born in 1917, and after the war devoted himself to writing. He won a succession of German literary prizes, including the Critic’s Prize in 1953, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. One of Germany’s most popular and prolific authors, Heinrich Böll gained international fame as a chronicler of the Federal German Republic (1949-1990). Critics have generally emphasized his strong ethical stance, which stemmed from his personal philosophy of Christian humanism and sympathy for the downtrodden.He died in 1972.I’m reading this at the moment…

The Clown.

The face of a clown is the face of innocence, and innocence goes to the wall in German society after the Second World War, when double-dealing and double standards have become a way of life. Heinrich Böll’s clown is a professional entertainer in his late twenties who has reached the end of his tether: an unhappy drunk abandoned by the women he loves, too honest and disillusioned to compromise, he sits in his lonely flat and calls for help or consolation of any kind. For this is a study in hypocrisy – emotional, sexual, religious and political – where the majority are smugly blinkered and the rest are caught in a trap they fail to understand, let alone escape.

Happiness…a melancholic song of longing, a freedom of the floating clouds, clarity of the clear blue sky, the soothing balm of the gentle breeze, a relaxing sweetness of silence, a twilight joy of the setting sun, a tranquil lightness of being…

Look, look at them, look at all the sad people, stewn all over like useless bones to be collected and burnt and cast away into oblivion. Look at them walking without minds, minds disrobed of intelligence.

I look around and can only see sad people clutching onto their frayed consiousness, not even aware of their existence.

So they walk, so it seems, like ghosts, like dogs in a forsaken street without will or purpose to live. I see them walking toward darkness, winding and unwinding themselves into misery.

Sadness is a mistake. Suffering a hassle. So is happiness. We boil our consciousness in a cauldron stewed with ignorance, greed, hatred…for what?

You look at me with pity and remorse. You feel I feel them too. You seem to laugh at me. I do not judge you. I do not laugh at you. I do not even pity you. I just look at you with sadness and helplessness. Even if you do not feel them, I can feel them – for you.

There I was, firmly posted in the midst of dim-witted bozos bullying their half-baked sensibility over a stale joke. They tried hard to laugh, their laughter crackling in the air as they punched each other gleefully, spits frothing out of their mouths.

I did not laugh.

They looked at each other and frisked themselves of their sanity. They did not see me. Not even their sanity, if they had any.

Smoke filled the room along with putid strench of beer. They clank their glasses with countless cries of ‘cheers!’ punctuated with drunkard philosophical talks. Each of them tried to justify their insanity. They succeeded.

A loosely attired girl walked in. They stared at her amorously, winefully, insanely. They did not see me.

Somewhere, dogs barked into the night. ‘These damned dogs!’ shouted one of them and waved his hand, driving off a fly, eyes still fixed on the semi attired girl who had sat in a corner. She was soon surrounded by friendly drunkards, brewing sweet talks, showering hapless smiles on her.